Manifesting Future 40K Products

[Flaherty]

"Tacticus for the Tabletop"

 

My nine-year-old son and I have been having a blast playing the "Space Marine Adventures" board game. It's a great entry-point product, but it made me think, "Why isn't there Tacticus for the Tabletop?" I feel like so much of the hobby is built around massive games that only a minority of people actually get around to playing. I want a format that rewards small model counts, plays quickly, and eliminates some of the grognard stuff like measuring. Kill Team tries to do this, but I feel like that game is slightly hobbled by GW using it as a way to launch niche units into 40K. I think its popularity would soar if you could buy boxes of noted marine squads and play little puzzle-style missions in a more board game milieu. 

 

"Gundam, but Guilliman"

 

Bandai is launching a build/paint/play game this summer, horning in on GW's turf. What if GW pushed back, creating a scale model line of Space Marine kits? This feels like a no-brainer licensing extension, somewhere between their core offerings and JoyToy figs. Blokees show that making great models isn't a Bandai exclusive. 

 

These products are unlikely for a bunch of reasons, but I hope that some brand manager might stumble upon this thread and make magic happen. What kinds of product line expansions would you be keen to buy?

[ThePenitentOne]

Respectfully, the game needs less marine, not more.

 

Kill Team is a Godsend to non-marine players, and a way for GW to explore other less popular forces to determine whether a larger 40k release might work. Marinifying Kill Team would wreck 40k AND Kill team for people who don't play Marines. I don't know how long you've been playing... But I liked marines a lot when I first started in '89. After playing for a decade, the ubiquity of Marines really started to bother me, until the only ones that maintained any interest to me at all were the Deathwatch and the Grey Knights, who I tend to think of as Inquisition forces, and not Marines at all. Squeezing more Marines into Kill Team would literally destroy the game for me, although GW pretty much already did that when they torpedoed Spec Ops. 

 

Have you looked into Boarding Actions? There's a hardback book that lists suitable units from every faction for 500 point games, and a lesser collection of strats and abilities as befits a smaller force. Some people don't buy in because the terrain is expensive, and the way missions are written, it certainly feels like it is required. It isn't, but GW works hard to make you feel like it is- their mission maps even label specific pieces. When I really took the bait and went all in on 40k was Space Hulk... And they worked just as hard to make you think you needed their puzzle-piece gameboard to play. We played on a piece of plywood tiled with 1.5 inch tiles; rather than putting grout between the tiles as you would in a shower stall, we jammed wall-sized pieces of corrugated cardboard into the gaps. It was a 3d board that cost us $30 to make, and it would be PERFECT for Boarding actions.

 

But the truth is you don't even NEED Boarding Actions. You say in your post "You feel like so much of the hobby is built around massive games," and that's true... But only if you pay attention to what everyone else is doing. The question is whether or not you and your son force yourselves to do what everyone else is doing just because everyone else is doing it. There is NOTHING preventing you from fielding a single commander, and one or two infantry units as an army.

 

They tell us that their published missions aren't built for armies that small, and there might even be some truth to that... But I think that people designing their own scenarios is a lost art. We do it all the time in my circles because we are Crusaders and Campaigners, but tweaking existing missions to work with smaller forces is a great way to learn how to write your own scenarios.

 

One of my favourite little armies that I played in 9th was a Xenos Inquisitor leading a 5 man Fortis KT and a Watchmaster leading a 5 man Proteus team and Corvus Blackstar. Now in 9th, there was a dumb rule preventing the Fortis  team from riding in the Blackstar. That's gone now: any KT can ride a Blackstar, and an Inquisitor can ride anything, which means all four units can ride. 

 

That "Army" isn't much bigger than a KT, but it's actually 5 whole units! And if a mission doesn't work for them, we're just gonna bend it 'til it does.

 

[TheMawr]

On 5/25/2025 at 8:31 PM, Flaherty said:

 I want a format that rewards small model counts, plays quickly, and eliminates some of the grognard stuff like measuring.

 

https://start-warhammer.com/combat-arena/

 

Its a hard find physically but the rules are freely downloadable and making the board, as well as proxying from your collection shouldnt be too hard. Sadly it seems the other 2 ( or 3 ?) are gone from the site, I can look if I have downloaded their rules previously.

With 1 character per player it might be too small for what you want ? ( and WHU is probably the wrong setting.)

[sitnam]

I just want Warhammer Quest to come back. I never got into Crused City, but I loved Blackstone Fortress.

[Grotsmasha]

I cannot recommend WHQ: Blackstone Fortress and WHQ: Cursed City enough. It's all simple hex-based maps, and was simple enough for my then 6/7year old to play without assistance.

5 hours ago, sitnam said:

I just want Warhammer Quest to come back. I never got into Crused City, but I loved Blackstone Fortress.

Cursed City had some gameplay adjustments that my group moved into Blackstone Fortress that made the way the hostiles reinforce significantly better.

[Rusted Boltgun]

How about a return to a physical format for the Combat Cards? I have the original Spacewar set, I poured over those images as a kid - loved them. I see they were reformatted a while ago too.

 

Given the popularity of card-based games at the moment, is there a market?

 

I would enjoy something quest-based that I could play solo, take on holiday, etc

 

I would also second Space Hulk - we still play my v.1 set. All you need in one box, no measuring @Flaherty, just counting. Taut gameplay, replayability, expansionable (I have Deathwing and Genestealer too). Typing that out makes me wonder why I'm building up a couple of 40k armies....!

[sarabando]

the gundam thing is interesting, a larger scale plastic model for busts or display pieces could be really interest. 

[Brother Tyler]

@Flaherty, you may be interested to check out the [outdated] list of WH40K boardgames here. That index is part of a larger [outdated] list of all WH40K games, including the hobby games (such as WH40K and Kill Team) as well as video games. While many of the official websites for games no longer exist because GW scrubs them once they terminate support for these games, there are links to the Board Game Geek entries, which often include numerous pictures and, occasionally, videos of reviews/game sessions. You might find a game or two that comes close to scratching the itch you describe, and some of those might be available either new or used.

 

Based on the things you mentioned wanting to see, I recommend looking at Warhammer 40,000: Fireteam and The Horus Heresy: Betrayal at Calth. Other members have mentioned a lot of great games that you might also consider, though most of those don't allow for the Space Marine on Space Marine type of gaming that you seem to be aiming for (Space Hulk is a particular favorite of mine, though it's limited to Space Marine Terminators).

 

In addition, while you seem to have some aversion to the current edition of Kill Team, the 2018 edition of that game included rules for representing different Chapters (via the Elites expansion). You might also consider homegrown efforts, especially if there is a [board]game system that you like. For example, shortly before Games Workshop revitalized Kill Team (with the 2018 edition that I linked above), there was a short-lived game called Shadow War: Armageddon which was similar to older editions of Necromunda, Mordheim, and the like. Players have developed a variety of rules for that game, including rules for representing various Chapters of the Adeptus Astartes. You can see the files that are available at the B&C here, and other sites such as Yaktribe also have homegrown rules for the game available for free download. The downside to SWA is that it doesn't include Primaris, which may limit your options depending upon your current model collection. Of course, you could always just use the "counts as" rule or you might consider developing your own homegrown rules for using Primaris in SWA. Used copies of these older games (Kill Team 2018 and Shadow War: Armageddon) are often available in used bookstores, game stores, and online.

Edited May 30 by Brother Tyler
Added notes about Primaris in SWA

[Halandaar]

On 5/25/2025 at 7:31 PM, Flaherty said:

"Tacticus for the Tabletop"

 

My nine-year-old son and I have been having a blast playing the "Space Marine Adventures" board game. It's a great entry-point product, but it made me think, "Why isn't there Tacticus for the Tabletop?" I feel like so much of the hobby is built around massive games that only a minority of people actually get around to playing. I want a format that rewards small model counts, plays quickly, and eliminates some of the grognard stuff like measuring. Kill Team tries to do this, but I feel like that game is slightly hobbled by GW using it as a way to launch niche units into 40K. I think its popularity would soar if you could buy boxes of noted marine squads and play little puzzle-style missions in a more board game milieu. 

 

Have you considered Warhammer Underworlds? Admittedly set in Age of Sigmar, but the format (small hex-based board so no measuring, limited pool of 3-6 models per side in single-buy boxes, each model is a character with it's own abilities) sounds like it hits most of the points you mention, albeit being a PvP game rather than a Space Marine Adventures PvE style co-op boardgame. I've long felt 40K would benefit from having an Underworlds analogue where they could release small teams of different kinds of models, 

 

In terms of other games with a co-op element, both Blackstone Fortress and Cursed City (again that one is set in AoS) have been mentioned but i'll add my +1 that they are both very good and are relatively easy to get hold of, unlike some of the more limited and retired boxes like Combat Arena.

[Aarik]

9 hours ago, Halandaar said:

Have you considered Warhammer Underworlds? Admittedly set in Age of Sigmar, but the format (small hex-based board so no measuring, limited pool of 3-6 models per side in single-buy boxes, each model is a character with it's own abilities) sounds like it hits most of the points you mention, albeit being a PvP game rather than a Space Marine Adventures PvE style co-op boardgame. I've long felt 40K would benefit from having an Underworlds analogue where they could release small teams of different kinds of models, 

 

I'm not sure if Underworlds would be the best for younger kids or bringing in new players.  A few years ago I bought one of the sets to try to play with my non-gamer significant other, and it didn't work very well haha.  I was (perhaps foolishly) hoping that it wouldn't be much more complicated than a regular board game, but that wasn't the case.  It felt at least as complicated as 40k, but since it was a new system, none of my background knowledge of general game mechanics really translated so I was learning it fresh as I was trying to teach it.  I think we made it through like 3/4 of a game and neither of us had much fun.  Other people's mileage can definitely vary though.  I think the new Kill Team starter set with SM and DG would be a better starting place, and the KT mechanics translate better to the larger tabletop games better than Underworlds does.